James F. Bond Sr. Interview, 26 February 2005

Except when we had the big flood there, they had a little river that ran through the city

TT:

Lake Darling ran through there too, yeah?

JB:

This was Mouse River. And when the flood occurred, they called it the "Mouse that Roared," and they had this big special edition paper that came out. A few of us worked with the civilian police in Minot for flood control to prevent looting and stuff like that and we were authorized to do that by the federal government 'cause that's the only time you can use federal troops.

TT:

Yeah, in an emergency like that. Let's start with where you grew up, where you went to school, how you entered the military, how you ended up at Minot.

JB:

I grew up in Michigan. That was my home state.

TT:

Where in Michigan?

JB:

I was born in Flint and spent a lot of time there went to the northern area, which is around Tawas, Oscoda, that area, spent some time there. Came back to Flint 17 years old, a group of guys I was running with were in trouble with the law all the time, and I just did not want to find myself at Jackson, which is the big State Pen there. In fact, they call it the largest walled prison in the United States so at that time my dad was in the National Guard and I told him what I wanted to do, I wanted to enlist. I went first to the Navy. The Navy recruiter was not in so I was walking down the hallway and the Air Force recruiter stuck his head out, "Say, come in here don't go away," so that's how I wound up and went to basic training at Lackland in San Antonio.

TT:

That was where a lot of you guys did your basic.

JB:

At that time that's the only basic training facility there was.

TT:

What year was that?

JB:

That was 1955.

TT:

OK, that was the year I was born so that gives me some perspective (laughs).

JB:

I was 17 years old then.

TT:

Yeah so Lackland, you did 6 months?

JB:

Our basic training was about three months, but because I had gotten pneumonia I had to spend an extra month, I was what you called a wash
back to a flight of new people, and had to start over again so

TT:

So you were there for 6 months or something.

JB:

Yeah, that was basic training.

TT:

And then how did the decision come for you to go into the security police?

JB:

Well to begin with I wasn't even considering that. After I got out of basic training I had a score high enough on my aptitude test to become an Aircraft Load Master, which is a part of an aircrew line up, and we were working on C-119 aircraft at that time. Charleston,